Daphne
by Simon920
Summary: Daphne's POV on the boys.


Title: Daphne's POV

Author: Simon

Pairing: Daphne—B/J

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Daphne talks about the boys

Warnings: none

Disclaimers: These guys aren't mine, they don't belong to me, worst luck, so don't bother me.

Archive: Moonshadow Tribe and ATP

Feedback: Hell, yes. 

**Daphne's POV**

Justin is my best friend, but he can be such a total bonehead sometimes.

God, he really can.

Here he had Brian—gorgeous, smart, rich Brian—completely in love with him and he throws him over for Ethan.

I meanâEthan?

What was that about? Because Brian wouldn't come out and tell Justin that he loves him? Oh, please. It's not like he didn't show him ten times a day.

And Ethan—what a slime ball. I mean, it's not like it was hard to figure that one out. Talk about your no brainer.

What I didn't get about that whole thing was why Justin couldn't see how much Brian really cared about him. It's not like everyone on the planet couldn't see it. The guy was totally in love, for God's sake.

OK, I know. He was still being really snarky sometimes and we did walk in when Brian was with that guy on the couch—that was pretty tacky, especially when he didn't even stop or anything when he saw us, but stillâ Brian loved Justin.

That whole thing with the prom?

He showed up in a room full of high school kids and looked fantastic—and that dance and the kiss! That was so fucking hot.

Even with what happened after it was still amazing. You know what? I saw Brian down in the garage when we were all waiting for the police and the ambulance and he wouldn't let anyone get near Justin until Todd's father told him that he was a doctor and that he wanted to check Justin's vital sign and make sure that he was still breathing. Even then he hardly moved away more than a few inches.

I saw him at the hospital, too. I don't think he knows, but I did and I saw that he was crying one night.

It wasn't loud or anything, he just had these tears sort of rolling down his face every few minutes while he was watching Justin sleep through the window in his door. That almost scared me, you know? I mean, I thought that maybe Justin had died and that was why he was crying, but then I realized that he was just really upset and worried.

We had this sort of agreement about him being there, Brian and me, I mean. I would go there after I finished dinner and would just go sit with Justin and read to him while he was still in the coma. That's how I know that Brian would show up every night after everyone else had gone.

I didn't tell anyone that he was there and he would talk to me about things and keep me company and help pass the time because really all that we were doing there was waiting for Justin to wake up. I got to know him pretty well, I think. I always thought that he was hot and all, but I like him a lot now. He was so, I don't know, so kind then.

He was really sweet. He's always been nice to me, but it was like he couldn't stand the thought of causing anyone any more pain. It was like he was walking on tiptoe around me or that if he really let himself go and feel everything that he was locking up, he'd maybe break into a thousand pieces. He was scared and guilty and he was just so afraid that Justin would die or end up really messed up, but he still came every night.

That's when I started thinking of Brian as a moth—it was like he only came out at night and he was drawn to this bright flame and no matter what he might want or where he wanted to go, he had to come see Justin. It was like he had no choice.

I know he blamed himself for the whole thing happening, too—and God, when Justin's Mom told him to never see Justin again—I don't know who I felt worse for, Brian or Justin.

Justin just completely flipped out and I was afraid that he'd walk out on his Mom and then it would have been this huge mess. It's not like his father gave a rat's ass or anything, so he couldn't go there. I would have taken him in, but I was still living at home then and my parents just said that there was no way in Hell that they were going to get in the middle of something like that.

Brian and I still talked, though, even when he wasn't seeing Justin because of Mrs. Taylor.

Once I was out shopping and I saw him driving home from work and I was only like a couple of blocks away from the loft and it was like seven o'clock. I decided to get a bag of Chinese food and he let me come upstairs and we sat on that white rug and ate and talked about all kinds of stuff. He asked me if I had a boyfriend, he was sort of teasing me, and then he asked me if I'd gotten laid yet.

I didn't answer, just sort of blushed and laughed—like I was going to tell him that Justin and I had done it. He laughed and said that I should if I hadn't, that I was old enough. So I told him that I was waiting for him to realize that he was completely in love with me and he said he was, but I shouldn't hold me breath.

He was really sweet about it.

We didn't talk about Justin much, I just mentioned that he was really upset and angry with his Mom and Brian looked sad when I told him that but he didn't really say much about it. I think it was just a day or so later that Justin was allowed to see him again.

So he finally ends up right where he belongs, with Brian and then he throws it all away because Brian isn't into candle lit dinners on the floor and didn't bring him flowers or some shit like that.

How lame is that?

I mean, was he trying to turn Brian into some bullshit fantasy figure or something? He was Brian—smart and rude and arrogant and honest and totally in love with him and he wants a bunch of flowers.

Brian gave him a place to live and paid for his school and got him a computer so he could still draw and—shit, he just did everything for him and stupid Justin wanted flowers.

God, just give me a break.

So he goes out and he finds Ethan who tells him all the shit he thinks he wants to hear and he broke Brian's heart, the stupid ass.

Ethan, God, what a creep.

I mean, OK, he's good playing the violin and I guess that he'll probably make some kind of a name for himself and all of that, but he didn't really love Justin, not like Brian does. It's like my Dad says, "as any fool can plainly see—I can see it."

Brian is the real deal and Ethan is just a lightweight.

Ethan—God. The first time I met him I remember looking at him and thinking that Justin was kidding. He couldn't be serious about this—kid—replacing Brian. I mean, he had to be jerking me around, right?

But then they started kissing in front of me and Justin had this simpy lovesick puppy look on his face and I knew he thought that he was serious. Even when Ethan started making him look bad in front of his snotty musician friends, Justin just took it and that was when I knew that the Justin I'd been best friends with since third grade was on vacation somewhere and whoever this new guy was, I hoped that he'd bring my friend back soon.

So Justin was setting himself up for a pretty good fall and I just hoped that he wouldn't land so hard that he would be unable to get up again.

As soon as I opened the door I knew he'd hit the ground hard. He looked like shit and his hands were all cut up. He didn't have any clothes or anything with him, but I gave him the couch and he went to get his stuff the next day when he knew that Ethan would be in class.

It took him almost a month before he figured it out and I thought that he was smarter than that, but there you go.

I didn't tell him that I'd stayed friends with Brian and that he was at least as screwed up as Justin was. I had gotten into the habit of stopping at the loft in almost every Thursday night with some take out and we would just hang out. He always insisted on paying me back for the food, too—saying that he might be a fag, but he was a gentleman, Damnit.

We would just sit and talk. I would slip in some stuff about Justin and he would pretend to not care and then I'd tell him some more and when I left he'd always kiss me on the cheek and thank me.

I just so love him.

A few months went by like this and I didn't tell Justin that I was still seeing Brian and that we were friends now. We really were and I told him all kinds of things and he even told me some stuff about himself that I don't think even Justin knows.

He still never asked about Justin, but I'd slip some stuff into the conversation so Brian knew that he and Ethan had broken up. I was glad when he found out because he'd been looking shitty—or as shitty as Brian can look. He was thinner than he had been and he had these circles under his eyes like he hadn't been sleeping and—the most telling thing of all—he let this teenaged straight girl hang out with him.

OK, I know it was because he wanted to know about Blondie-pants, but it's not like he doesn't have people his own age to talk to. I mean, I guess that he does, anyway.

I'd been sort of picking up hints that Justin was sort of starting to think that he knew he'd screwed up, too.

I mean he helped get Brian off when his shitty nephew tried to get him in trouble and I saw that Brian had his bracelet back—he mentioned, oh so casually, that Justin had dropped it off the night before and I thought that was a good start.

So OK, Justin finally came to his senses and walked out on the sleaze and back in with me.

Well, like I said, it's a start but not what we're all looking for.

He was just moping around and, I have to admit, he was starting to get to me with his drama queening around the place—well, that's not true. He wasn't really queening, that would be Emmett, he was just, God he was just moping.

It was starting to seriously make me crazy. So I just told him to basically get in Brian's face, be there, be everywhere he goes and just don't let him forget about what they'd had together for even one minute.

I'm so damn smart I scare myself sometimes!

He gets this job at Vanguard—it happened to be a Thursday—so I was stopping in at the loft with Thai and Brian just gave me this look like—you bitch! He knew it was my idea and he was sort of pissed that he'd been set up.

I just started laughing and told him hat if he was really upset he could always come up with am excuse to fire him and he snarked back that he just might do that.

OK, so he did fire Justin and you can't believe the waterworks that night at my place. If I ever said that Justin wasn't a drama queen, I take it back. I swear to God, he must have gone on for like two hours about how he'd pissed Brian off and now he hated him and Brian would never speak to him again and blah, blah, blah.

I mean—God.

So I told him to go get his job back if he wanted it so badly.

It was only like seven thirty so there was a good chance that Brian was still in his office. I drove him down myself and dropped him off.

Justin told me about it later—like after the whole weekend went by with no word from him and then he was so fucking happy. It was like the pod person was finally awake and when he came over to change his clothes he had this really well-fucked looked about him and laughed and said he wouldn't be able to sit don for like a week.

Poor him.

I haven't gotten any in like two months and he's complaining. I'm so no sympathetic.

He's decided to stay with me, which is fine. It means that we'll share the rent and he and Brian have some space from each other when they want it—which was probably a lot of the problem the first couple of times they were together—and I'll get a lot of time to myself, which is a good thing after the roommates from Hell I had last semester.

It's weird. This time it's like both of them are different than they used to be.

Justin is pretty determined not to screw up, to let Brian be Brian—good and bad—and Brian seems like he's, I don't know—I guess he seems more like a grown up now. He still does some weird shit, but he seems like he's not taking it for granted this time.

It's like he knows that Justin is stronger this time around and that if they mess it up that Justin would be sad but that he'd be able to get over it and move on. I don't know if Brian could.

I think he might have staked so much on him and Justin working out this time that if they don't he'll maybe just say 'to Hell with it' and not bother trying anymore.

Oh, he'll still go out and get laid, but I don't think he'd be willing to give someone else what he's giving to Justin. And it would be really awful to be like forty or fifty and not have anyone care if you were tired or sick or to ask you if you'd had a good day.

I'd still ask him and I'd still care, but I'm not the one he wants around all the time.

Maybe this time it will take.

10/1/03

11


End file.
